In 2006, iTunes touted its billionth download. Steve Jobs has become a modern day folk hero while record companies are finally starting to realize suing ordinary people for music piracy is not so productive after all. The music industry has finally taken notice that digital distribution is not only inevitable but is to be embraced. But all is not perfect in this scenario. iTunes has a little known policy that could cost you more than you realize.
Here’s the setup.
When you purchase music from iTunes, the process is seamless and straightforward. And considering that the iTunes client software is so moronically designed and non-intuitive, at least acquiring new music from the iTunes store is thankfully easy.
But that’s not the dirty little secret touted in this headline.
Let’s imagine you purchased a song from the iTunes store, and downloaded it to you PC or Mac. Ninety-nine cents for keeping a digital version of your favorite song on hand is not an unreasonable fee. But if you somehow lost the file due to hardware failure, virus attack or stollen equipment, you may think you can just go back to iTunes and download the song again. Right?
Wrong!
You PAY each time you download that song! Truly one of the dumbest policies ever.
And worse, the consumer is not warned of this limitation at any point during the use of the software or service. Quoting from a policy statement buried deep within the iTunes support website, “When you buy a song, video, game, or album from the iTunes Store, you are entitled to download it a single time. If you want to download it again, you must purchase it again.”
The whole point of digital rights management is to reduce piracy while encouraging consumption of digital content. And with a billion downloads from iTunes, it seems most people are just fine with that. But this idiotic policy of requiring full payment each time you download a song you already paid for is a transparent assault on your wallet.
You paid for the song when it was on vinyl, first on 45 and then the LP, and maybe even on reel-to-reel, but then again when it came out on 8 track, then AGAIN on cassette, and MiniDisc, and CD, and DVD audio, and finally each time you download it from iTunes! So in this scenario, in your lifetime you have purchased Don’t Fear The Reaper at least nine times! Isn’t that enough? Well according to iTunes pay-per-download policy, not quite.
Some might be tempted to say, “It’s only 99 cents. What’s the big deal?” But for those people whose music collection spans tens of thousands of songs stored on a harddrive, one little burp of the operating system can wipe out a sum of money equal to the GDP of a small country. No wonder people pirate music!
Another major digital audio content provider, Audible.com, allows you to purchase an audio program one time, and it’s stored forever on the site under your account where you can download it again and again at no extra cost. And before you direct your disdain toward Apple, there is good reason to think this is probably not Apple’s doing.
A couple paragraphs before this one is a description of how the record companies have unduly enriched themselves with windfall that emerges each time there is a format change in the way music is delivered. You buy your favorite music again because the way it is played keeps chaning. But now that consumers can enjoy their digital music purchases on any device without buying it again, future windfalls related to format changes are unlikely – and the days of record company superprofits are over.
A pay-per-download policiy smells exactly like something the greedy record companies would strongarm iTunes into before granting them rights to publish their content. And the smell ain’t pleasant.
(BTW, if your curious which song was the billionth iTunes download, it is Coldplay’s Speed of Sound. Ironic, don’t you think?)
